To Each His Own
by Mazzie May
Summary: Everyone has insecurities. Everyone faces them differently. Or in some cases, these cases, they avoid them all together. Now up, Basch and Penelo
1. To Garden

**Author's Note: Beaucoup grâce à TheDonutMistress for coming up with the title because my brain farted something loud it came to title of this story. I had chapters down, but after that. Brain death.**

**Rating: T  
Character(s): Basch  
Chapter Summary: People are fickle and their needs change. But not plants. They're need is constant and their love never changing. Basch likes that.**

**To Each His Own  
**Chapter One: To Garden  
_By:Mazzie May_

_--_

_Primrose bushes look suspiciously like miniature willows,_ Basch's mind mumbles with little purpose. Just a thought. He rarely has any steady, conclusive, important thoughts whilst in the garden. Well, in his part of the garden. And only when he's the one doing the gardening.

Basch likes _Botanicals_, or "plants" as they're more commonly known. He isn't crazy about flora or obsessed with fauna and he definitely hates dirt getting under his nails (it looks unprofessional). He doesn't like sunburns, either. He just likes taking care of plants. They're simple, soft, quiet and most important, rely heavily on him.

He straightens to ease his spine. Another thing he doesn't like; back pain from hunching over. It's all worth it to him, though; after all if he didn't go through all of this, who would take care of them?

He bends back over the Primrose bush. It reminds him of Lady Ashe. Princess Ashelia B'Nargin. Queen Dalmasca. When he'd first come across the bush, it'd been surviving, but just barely. He took care of it, clipped away the dead buds and branches, helped it along. It flourished with his help, but mostly it's own will to make it. Just like her Highness. He lifts the many but light Primrose branches to reveal the soft rotting petals beneath. Just like her Highness, the hidden places hold all the decay.

Her beautiful top layer of flowers gives off a sense of strength that manages to hide the tender shriveling at her core. Unlike with her Highness, he can do something about the dying flowers. Queen Dalmasca, however, is beyond his help. Probably anyone's help, by this point. He looks down at the small violets dotted around the base. She's so busy trying to protect the weak ones she's taken no time for herself.

He lets the branches slide from his hand sway back into place. How completely depressing.

He much rather tend to the irises and daffodils, anyway. After all, those are the flowers that need him the most. Without his careful trimmings and the precisely measured watering, they'd waste away.

Daffodils are for Noah. _Garbranth_. The boy who lost everything with his country, the man who died for another's to prosper. Daffodils don't remind Basch of Noah in the least; they were just his favorite. Noah had relied so little on Basch, and a good thing too, as things turned out, what with Basch leaving and all. But the flowers seemed to be waiting for him, looking up at him with total focus.

There were little lilies closer to the ground amongst the daffodils. After all, lilies were the flowers of the dead. Noah died along time ago. Garbranth still lives on.

The orchids are for Landis because they're the native flower there. They can't grow anywhere else. If anyone has irises growing out of their dirt, the dirt had to have been shipped from Landis at some point and the irises planted later.

He hadn't been able to protect his home country, but he could protect this little sect of his homeland. No matter how many soldiers and people lost, or how brutally the royal family was murdered and how it was so out of his control… He's managed to save this little bit of Landis. Though it will never make up for all demise and devastation, the Empire did not obliterate it all.

For he and this little plot still live.

Basch likes flowers because they need him.

Gabranth is necessary. No one needs Basch Fon Ronsenberg.

--

**Author's Note: I did something similar with the Resident Evil cast. Only I think this is going to be, uhm... what's the word? Oh. Yeah. Better. It's going to be better. Dammit. So, that was Basch and his gardening. Based off a conversation I had with aforementioned TheDonutMistress when we discussed what characters did on their own time. I suggested gardening as a joke, and here I went and made it work (sort of). Up next is Penelo.**

**R&R please, commentary always appreciated.**


	2. To Be Content

**Author's Note: When I say "Penelo", I want to say Penelopy. Or pillow, depending on how much sleep I'm lacking. Once, I said pop-sicle.  
**

**Rating: K  
Character(s): Penelo  
Summary: It's not about getting what you want, but wanting what you get. What bothers Penelo is that being content doesn't bother her.**

**To Each His Own**  
Chapter Two: To Be Content  
_By: Mazzie May_

--

It's not that Penelo doesn't like sky pirating with Vaan. That's not it at all, because she does like it. They have fun. They go exploring, they discover things. It's not a matter of whether she likes it or not. She just doesn't really… _want_ to. In fact, she wants to so little that whenever they're back in Rabanastre, she goes back to the shop and helps Migelo out instead of planning the next adventure with Vaan.

Currently, she's behind the counter, playing with some Storm Crystals. They do these cool little magnetic things that always keep her mind off things because playing with the little Magick pebbles is mindless fun. Of course, if a costumer came up with a purchase, she'd snap to it right away. But in the mean time…

"I want that!" She looks up from the pyramid she's making to the voice's small owner. A young boy, tugging on his mother's skirt. Pointing to a box of Polished Pebbles.

The mother smiles and reaches out, grabbing a box. Penelo nudges the Storm Crystals to the side and smiles. "Hi there! Find everything okay today?" The traditional Migelo costumer purchase greeting.

"Yup!" the boy chirped, beaming at the box.

Penelo makes a show of eyeing the box. "Polished Pebbles, eh?" She looks down at his smiling face mock-suspiciously. "What do you want these for?"

He covers his mouth, stepping behind his mother's skirt, giggling, playing. "I dunno," he drawls out.

She sets the box down and smiles at the mother as she takes the bills. "You don't know?" she gasps down at him.

"Nope!" He takes the box. "Haven'cha ever just wanted somethin' 'cause you wanted it?"

He giggles again before he begins skipping out of the store, clutching the box. The mother thanks her again following after him.

_Haven'cha ever just wanted somethin' 'cause you wanted it?_

He left before she could answer. She picks up her Storm Crystals and starts arranging them again. Has she ever wanted something for the sake of wanting something. She glances around the room at all the people picking things up off shelves, smiling at the item. Their mouth's move.

_If you don't want it, I'll take it!_

_This is cool, you think she'll want it?_

_Nah, I don't want it._

Want. She drops her eyes down to her Crystals. _Want._ It's probably better that the boy darted out; he wouldn't have understood when she told him 'no'. She doesn't _want_ anything, really. She likes a lot. She liked going out and adventuring with Vaan. She likes navigating an airship. She likes volunteering at Migelo's.

Through everything that has happened, Penelo has always been content. She's never needed a change. Certainly never wanted one. She likes the changes that were made, she likes being apart of the team that put Lady Ashe rightfully in her throne. She didn't _want_ to go on the adventure, but Vaan did and she liked Vaan, liked being around Vaan, so she went, too. She didn't have to go. And she extremely liked meeting Larsa.

She places the last Storm Crystal onto the pyramid and sighed. She didn't seek any of it of it out. She fought because Vaan was fighting, no other reason. She didn't like the Empire or the war, but she never wanted to do something about it, not personally.

_That's the problem with the problem, _she sort of realizes, sort of reminds herself. Penelo doesn't have a temper, as far as she knows. Customers are sometimes rude and she's met nasty pirates and been in even nastier situations, yet she remains pleasant, accommodating, not quite eager to please but helpful. People who want things get angry, express themselves. She only remains there, ever content.

Vaan skids into the shop, Kytes laughing at his side. She smiles at them, not even wondering where he's been. She knows he's come to tell her of their next destination. Kytes pops up behind the counter with her to help a costumer as she walks off to the side so Vaan can tell her where-to.

"Actually," he says with a smile. "I don't have any place in mind." He tossed down a map of the continent to the east of Ivalice and placed his hands on both sides horizontally, holding it flat. "Your pick. Where do you want to go?"

Things are awkward the next couple of days because she only stared at him before answering, "I don't want to go anywhere," and he takes it the wrong way.

--

**Author's Note: I had some problems with this one because the thought of "Being content with content" could be expressed in several ways and I'm pretty sure I got caught up in all of them. I tried to stick to the 'want' branch, but I might've missed a loose thread or nine. Regardless, she really doesn't seem to have much purpous in the game. I liked her and all (sort of), but she's just a girl that works in a store and got kidnapped for the wrong reasons. You have an airship, Balthier. Take her home before she gets hurt. Vaan next chapter.  
**

**R&R please, commentary always appreciated.**


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